Directed by Roselyn Bosch
(French with English sub-titles)
Color. Distributed by Gaumont
 

            Knowing that there were over 100,000 Jews (mostly foreign) in Vichy, in the unoccupied zone, the Nazis wanted more to be turned over to them. The French government (with Marshal Petain’s collaboration) was willing to offer 10,000. In June 1942, some 13,000 Jews were rounded up by members of the Parisian police force and locked inside the Velodrome d’Hiver near the Eiffel Tower. Many were children. After their parents were transported to the death camps, the children, too, were evacuated to these same camps from which none returned. These are the bare background facts of what, in some ways, a conventional Holocaust film, but they hardly convey the real power of Roselyn Bosch’s achievement. By focusing sharply on the young victims, via two main parallel Jewish families, she transcends the familiar plot situations and patterns: segregation and persecution, brutality, mass evacuation, and special instances of heroism before annihilation. Countless films have recounted various horror stories of Nazi horror, and much of this film repeats some of the horrors, but La Rafle eventually builds to genuine pathos.

            Bosch builds on the memories of real-life survivor Joseph Weissman (excellent Hugo Leverdez) who was only eleven at the time of the fateful round-up. In the film he is a bright blond schoolboy and friends with peer Simon Zygler (an affecting Oliver Cywie). The Jewish kids are regarded as scamps for their mischief and quick wits, but there is an unmistakable note of contempt in the non-Jewish Parisians who have assimilated hideous anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda about vermin and parasites that need to be exterminated. Bosch begins her film with black-and-white documentary footage about the Occupation, and, in fact, Hitler (Udo Schenk) emerges as a character in this story, though in an ironic way. He is shown during some of his infamous rants and chilling meetings with Himmler and others, but he is also shown in private life—as someone fond of children (only, of course, if they are blond Aryans) and someone pained by his mistress Eva Braun’s propensity to be a party-girl. He is almost restrained when he gives his order for night and fog, that infamous code for the Holocaust, and this low-keyed tone works to the film’s advantage. The Nazis remain monsters but they aren’t exaggerated to the point of green talons, drooling saliva, or evil cackles.

            This low key prevails on even the Jewish side. The first shot of Jewish children (who are forced to wear a yellow star) is at a carousel in a park, but the scene quickly develops the idea of racial intolerance and persecution. Later there is an ironic joke about the Occupation’s being milder than the pogroms in Lublin, and the children even play their own version of the round-up, with little Noe Zygler(Mathieu di Concerto) complaining that he is tired of having to be the Jew in this game. There is an unforgettable scene when the Jewish children are allowed to be reunited with their parents in the camps, and little Noe runs excitedly all by himself to a waiting convoy truck. The camera follows his little figure from the rear and the boy’s excited anticipation is followed by one of his stuffed pets being left behind in the mud as the truck pulls away, taking him, undoubtedly, to his own death in the camps where the parents have already been exterminated. The understatement is countered by round-up scenes that become pornography of persecution as Jews dragged from hospitals, asylums, old folks’ homes, and their own tenements.

            While presenting damning evidence of France’s moral cowardice, the film does have its sentimental heroes. It is natural, of course, that one is the Jewish doctor David Scheinbaum (a quietly dignified Jean Reno) who, after being attacked by a Nazi soldier, yells out: “You will never destroy us!” but it is also heartening to see the non-Jewish Red Cross nurse Annette Monod (a brilliantly vivid Melanie Laurent), who is romantically drawn to him, become a willing heroine ready to sacrifice her own health and safety to rescue the children.    

            The most provocative sentimentality might well be in the film’s point of view regarding the children. There is so much sweetness about these children (especially in the angelic figure of Noe Zygler) that the audience’s sympathy is easily manipulated, especially at the end when Joseph escapes the cattle-trains transporting the victims to the death camps and when little Noe miraculously turns up after the war. Noe’s return is the one serious flaw in an otherwise powerful film that steals up on you.

            There have been bigger and better Holocaust movies, to be sure, but this one is a small gem whose flaws can be forgiven for its strong heartbeat and the unostentatious courage of its convictions.

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